The lack of ice cover has some big implications for the lakes, including greater shoreline erosion in some cases, to earlier blooms of toxic blue-green algae. The lack of ice cover will contribute to warming of the waters which may please us human swimmers but will also have consequences for the aquatic ecosystems.

I’m currently seeking data on Lake Winnipeg’s ice cover to see how it compares to statistics in this report. In a blog a few months ago, I referred to data about the increased number of ice-free days on Lake of the Woods. In that report I was amazed to see that there was actually a whole month longer, on average, of ice free days with the lake freezing up two weeks later in the fall and thawing two weeks earlier in the spring.

Some of the effects of global warming are hard to dislike, such as the warmer weather we’ve been enjoying in Winnipeg these days. But, overall I think there are many good reasons for us to be paying more attention to this issue, because the negative impacts of global warming are becoming much more apparent.

Responses

This is no surprise. You are looking at half a cycle. You are using only satellite data from 1979. The warming and cooling cycles last about 70 years. The years around 1979 were a cold peak which included Arctic ice as well. So go back to the 1930’s to 1950’s and check the ice cover and polar bears. It has little to do with global warming, but more with up and down cycles.